![]() He had to borrow money, but he took a real estate course and got his license. He was broke, jobless, and hadn’t finished his last year of high school, but he moved to Toronto where his brother lived.įortunately for him, he met a wise businessman who was a good influence. His turning point occurred at age 19 when he decided he couldn’t keep living a dual life, and he chose to pursue what he thought would give him a better life. Yet even as he escaped the street gangs and worked a part-time job, he was two different people – the polite kid from a respectable family who worked at the local pharmacy and, to quote him, “…a lying, stealing idiot with low self-esteem, almost no morals and the skills of a hard-boiled egg.” ![]() On the positive side, John did excel at sports, and it was his athletic skills that helped lure him away from the bad crowd he’d been hanging with. (John tells the story of his childhood in more detail in his book “Having It All”.) He dealt with is anger by taking it out on his son, physically. It was a loving family, but his hot-tempered father was a taxi driver, and every time he got called to the school meant lost time picking up fares. He was a regular in the school principal’s office, but that was nothing compared to the beatings he got at home because of his bad behavior. By the time he became a teenager his self-esteem was at rock bottom, and his only friends were thugs and trouble makers. Math and English were a struggle for him. He had a tough time learning to speak both French and English and quickly became the target of bullies. When he was 6, his family moved to Montreal, Canada, and there he faced all sorts of new challenges. Born in 1961, John Assaraf spent his early years in Tel Aviv, Israel, where it was anything but peaceful.
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